A Study in Scarlet
by StarCatBurning
Summary: Erza is left apprehensive and uncertain about Jellal after being stuck for seven years in limbo. Jellal himself might change that.


**Hello again! Sorry for the long stretch of MIA-ness, I had a lot of things on my hands. Recently my sister just introduced me to Fairy Tail, so I'd like to present something I decided to write, A Study in Scarlet. The title is shamelessly stolen from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle :P This is set during the X791 Arc. Enjoy!**

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A Study in Scarlet

"Idiot!"

"Bastard!"

"Droopy Eyes!"

"Pointy Eyes!"

"Wanna fight?"

"You said it!"

"Bring it on, Underwear Man!"

"Prepare to lose, Pepper Breath!"

It was a normal day at the guild, if any day at the guild could ever be considered normal. Natsu and Gray were lining up to beat each other's brains out, Mira was eyeing people around the guild for any suspicious couple-like behavior, and Levy was hardly visible behind a mountain of research. Alzack, beer mug in hand, sitting next to a heavily drunk Cana, had already been smacked twice by his wife for trying to feel up her extremely short... shorts. Asuka giggled on her father's knee, basking in his delirium.

And Erza sat by herself in a corner, mulling over cake that she hadn't taken a bite of yet. Sure, it looked delectable, and the strawberries implored her fork to gravitate towards them, but her stomach felt unusually tight and heavy, and her throat constricted with every breath she took. She chuckled bitterly to herself. It was a perfect antithesis - Erza not wanting to eat strawberry cake.

In fact this was the first time in days she'd come down from Fairy Hills, being struck by consecutive nightmares for days. She hadn't eaten anything since she'd retreated into her room upon hearing that news. That Jellal Fernandes had broken out of jail.

Deep down, she was worried, even as she watched Asuka play on Alzack's knee. Seven years. Seven long years since she had seen Jellal for the first time in eight, seven years since she'd had her heart broken when he'd disappeared into the lacrima of the Tower, and later lifted with his revival by Wendy, and plunged back into darkness as she watched him being led away into the jail carriage. It was a rollercoaster ride, one that she hadn't quite recovered from yet. And now to hear that he was still alive, and had escaped from jail- who knew what he could be up to now? Had he regained his memories? If so, what evil could he be doing right now?

Her hand shook, and tears welled up in her right eye.

She'd missed out on seven years. In that time, Alzack and Bisca had had a child. Romeo had grown to be a fine young boy, about the same age as Wendy. Droy had... increased in mass.

And she had been stuck for seven long years in limbo. A lot could have happened since then. She still felt uneasy, and it had been reflected in her restless nights and haunting nightmares.

In flashes of pallid lightning and twisting shadow, scraps of the previous night's dream came back to her, rearing their ugly heads and baring their broken-glass teeth in front of her eyes. She knew it well- it was the nightmare that had constantly haunted her for days.

...

_There he is, standing alone, his cloak fluttering in the wind, seemingly a part of the hillside he is standing on, the tree that he seeks for the barest company looming dead branches over the hood of his cloak, clawing at him. He pays no notice, or is too absorbed in something else over the crest of the hill to notice._

_She feels her feet shuffling forwards against her will, scuffing the earth, and a curious rot-burning-smell permeates her senses. It cannot be more real._

_As she arrives behind him he turns, a light smile gracing his sharp features, the tattoo that sprawls over his right eye cold and menacing. It is a sinister smile, one that makes her stomach turn over. It was the same smile he'd worn as he pushed her into the lacrima at the Tower, the same smile that mocked Simon's death, stripped him of their friendship, of her innocence._

_For a second his eyes flash red, glinting metal._

_She tries, yes she tries, to run, but her feet are not hers. They are _his_, and he knows it. His fingers beckon, and before she knows it she is at his side, and he slowly pushes back his hood, letting the wind whip his hair into a stinging frenzy. He must catch whatever horrified look that glazes her eyes, because his mouth turns upwards at the corners even more. She sees his hand snake out, latch on to her wrist, clamping cold, and he pulls her in until their noses are nearly touching. His breath frosts, minty on her cheeks, and his voice taunts, teasing her._

_"My, my, what have we here?" he purrs in a singsong voice, his nails digging into her skin as she tries to wrench her hand away._

_"Erza... Long time no see."_

_Her gaze swings wildly, like a lantern in a gale, towards the landscape that the hill overlooks._

_It is Magnolia. But what a Magnolia! Houses are smoking, crumbling black like burnt cookies in the oven, buildings have been wiped out, and there are still charred bodies in the street. Magnolia is ruined, and Jellal Fernandes oversees its destruction. High above the city in the sky, dark clouds swirl like vultures, spiralling inwards into a formation she does not know well, but enough to recognize that it is his doing._

_She knows he is powerful. But to destroy a city alone, with _one spell_- she just cannot get her brain to think of his potential. He is nineteen- no, _twenty six_ now, she reminds herself, with enough power to rule the world._

_His slender fingers, gentle but cold, guide her face back to his, resting on her cheek. His other hand traces her collarbone, drops down to her waist. He's about half a head taller, and she has to look up to meet his piercing gaze. He's beautiful._

_"The world you know is gone, Erza. Come back with me. Come back to me."_

_Her lips only move soundlessly to form his name._

_He scares her._

_Her best-friend-turned-occult-worshipper-who-died-and-then-came-back-and-then-tried-to-kill-himself-again-and-then-saved-the-world-but-was-imprisoned-and-then-broke-out-and-makes-her-heart-run-wild and she doesn't know how to behave around him anymore; he's wholly unpredictable._

_Like now._

_He pulls her in, hard, all of a sudden, and the instant their lips touch she is on fire, alight like an inferno. Her hand instinctively tangles itself in his tousled hair, and his hand is on her back, claw-like on the cold steel of her armour. Her heart pounds wildly, blood rushing, even in this dream. Her eyes flutter shut, and she wants to pull away but cannot. He is her drug. She cannot get enough of him. He's intoxicating, slowly poisoning her from the inside out. He applies pressure on her back, pushing them closer, and that's when she feels it._

_Her armour crumbles, flakes off her and blows away in the wind like ashes. She's not afraid anymore, and unsure no longer._

**_(Her nakama! Her friends! He killed them all!)_**

_She is reborn. He is the only person that can, and has, stripped off her armour, digging into her heart, wrenching it out of her and the ashes swirl around her, glowing like a new skin as they plaster to her._

**_(Her home! Her guild! He took it all away from her!)_**

_It's a dress from hell, a demon's hide, flickering with red like hot coals. He releases her, and she opens her eyes. She looks down at her new garb and smiles. She likes what he's done._

**_(How could you ever bear to love this murderer?)_**

_He takes her hand, and his grip is icy but pervertedly welcoming. He strokes her hair, calling her beautiful, elegant, graceful, among many other things._

_It's ironic: her strength is her failure, her victory her undoing. She likes her transformation, and it scares her and excites her at the same time._

_He is her king, her master: she is his queen. And she will rule by his side over this dead, broken world._

**_(Your everything is gone. Taken by him.)_**

_..._

**_(Are you happy now?)_**

_..._

She shook herself from her daydream- it wasn't proper to do such things while in the presence of strawberry cake. Picking up her fork- it had clattered to the table in her oblivion- she devoured the cake, feeling it clump together, sickly sweet in the back of her throat. What was happening? She wasn't supposed to be like this.

When Lucy had knocked at her door just this morning, and asked if something was wrong, she'd answered "Why not?" and gotten a hesitant, worried response.

"Erza, it's been five days. You haven't come out of your room once. Are you sure you're okay?"

And when Erza finally dragged herself out of bed and stared into the mirror in the bathroom, the face that stared back was pale and beaded with sweat, the eyes grave and dark, and her hair was a mess. She probably smelled awful, too.

After reassuring Lucy that she was fine, she took a much-needed shower, and, as promised, made her way down to the guild hall.

He was just a dream. He didn't scare her. And if he did anything to hurt her nakama she'd drive her katana into his heart personally.

And she didn't love him... Did she?

She shook her head fervently, then caught herself, aware of Lucy's watchful eye.

It's just a dream, she kept telling herself. Just a dream.

But her head felt heavy, her gut twisted painfully again, and she wobbled sideways on her chair. Eyes darting around furtively, she scanned the guild hall. Lucy was looking at her with a worried gaze, whispering something to Natsu and Gray, who had by then calmed down enough not to throw punches at each other. She had to act normal, or she'd have a hard time trying to explain herself to the already worried Lucy. She forced the rest of the cake down, feeling sick.

She had to get away from here.

Shakily standing, and trying to act as normal as possible, to avoid Lucy's attention, she traversed the few steps to the door and stepped into the flurry of blinding snow outside. She was unsure of where she was going, just knew that she needed to be away.

Once she was sure that she was well out of sight, she ran for it.

Stumbling into the forest near the guild to catch her breath, she collapsed, a tree providing a place for her to lean on. Her head was pounding, and her fingers were shaking uncontrollably, and all of a sudden she leaned over and threw up. The bitter tater of bile and the half-digested cake mixed together, burning her throat. Gasping, she slid down the trunk, holding her stomach, and the tears spilled out of her eyes.

The memory of him would never leave her, would it? He'd torture her, even in her dreams? Her forehead burned.

She didn't know what happened next, but she closed her eyes, bracing herself to ride the next wave of nausea, and slumped over to lie, passed out on the ground, utterly exhausted.

...

Jellal Fernandes was not happy. Sure, it wasn't his business to be smiley all day long, but he was, in this case, exceptionally unhappy.

Against his wishes as impromptu guild master, Ultear had forced the three of them into the dark, cold forest, where they had to sleep in the _freezing cold_ and the _devouring darkness_. Apparently, all this was so as to not be discovered by prying eyes who might want a share in the enormous price on Jellal's head.

500,000,000 jewels, and steadily rising with each day of his absence from Era. He sighed at the thought of it. Worth more than an S-Class mission.

Being imprisoned for over a year eating that lousy excuse for mush and sleeping in the little cramped space of magic-suppressing lacrima that was his cell, with only himself and that ridiculous cattle-prod wielded by his gaolers for company, he didn't mind the forest all that much. But what he was concerned about was Ultear's constant bids for their obscurity.

Fine. They were three of the most powerful mages in the world, with a fortune on their heads to rival the Heartfilias'. Fine. He had blue hair and a very incriminating tattoo. Besides, it _wasn't his fault_ that he had it, and _no_, Ultear, he wasn't gonna get rid of it, thank you very much.

He rubbed his new guild mark subconsciously. He belonged to a guild now, a guild that hunted down Dark Guilds and destroyed them, a ragtag band of three. He was the Master. And even though it wasn't really a proper guild he felt he'd advanced quite a lot these seven years.

But being cooped up in a tent like he was a little kid, mothered by Meredy, who for Lord's sake was _younger_ than him! All without knowing where in the world he was!

Right. He was fed up. Time to go exploring.

"Meredy?" he called from inside the tent to where she was standing guard under Ultear's instructions, and she answered with, "If this is another stupid plan to escape, Jellal, it won't work. I have you Linked, and if you try anything, you have an extra appendage between your legs that I don't."

Jellal cringed, remembering vividly the last time that had happened. Even though he was one of the Ten Heavenly Saints, people of his gender were still susceptible to under-the-belt tricks like that. However, that was an incomparable threat to his dying of loneliness and boredom.

"But I need to pee! And I can't pee in a tent!" he whined, making full use of his manly charm, something that would make _Elfman_ proud.

She sighed. "Fine, you can use that bush outside. But remember, I'm watching you."

Thanking her, he scrambled out of the tent, eyeing the band of magic inscription on his wrist.

If he was to escape, he'd have to time it perfectly: there was no room for error.

He dodged behind the bush that she pointed to and unzipped really loudly, hyper-aware of her gaze. Murmuring "_Shinentai!_" under his breath, he drew in the palm of his hand a symbol, and slowly beside him, something flickered into existence, gaining substance and form.

Siegrain. His partner in crime.

Jellal nodded briefly to his Thought Projection, who smirked back at him knowingly, and, checking to see if Meredy was not peeking (she wasn't), he hurried out from behind the bush to hide behind the trunk of a nearby tree, waiting till Siegrain emerged from behind the bush and began walking off with Meredy did he dare to activate Meteor, streaking off into the forest.

Jellal wasn't sure where to go yet, but he wanted to do something bold. Stand out in the open for a short while, after all that dodging and hiding from the Council. Deciding to head to the nearest town, he wandered around for a bit, emerged into a side alley after flipping over a wall, and-

Stopped dead, his heart plummeting. It was Magnolia. Magnolia, of all the towns that Ultear could have chosen to hide by. Magnolia, where Fairy Tail was. He shouldn't be here. No, he really shouldn't. Even for all the sake of going out of his way to be prominent, walking down a street in Magnolia was far too risky. A member of the guild would easily recognize him as the bastard who tried to murder Erza.

No, he decided, it was better to leave, and try this stunt elsewhere.

But a little nagging voice in his heart told him, _"Don't you want to see Erza again? At least for a while? Just a glimpse?"_

_No_, he told it firmly, but it insisted, _"You haven't seen her in seven years. Wouldn't you want to know how she's doing?"_

Half a minute later his feet stopped in front of the guild hall, and, checking for the presence of any stray guild members wandering around outside, he peered into the nearest window.

She wasn't there.

At a table close to the bar, he saw a plate of what, judging by the crumbs, had once been strawberry cream cake, and the fork was still there - it was evidently Erza's. But where was she?

His features set in a slight crease, he advanced up the slope that overlooked the guild hall to the girls' dorm, Fairy Hills. It took some snooping, but he located her room... er, rooms. The armor - filled space looked cold and empty, but there was still no Erza.

He checked his timepiece on the way down. It was time to get back, because Ultear was nearly back from gathering food, and whilst Meredy would be fooled, Ultear had seen Siegrain before, and enough times to tell him and Jellal apart.

So this trip would be a disappointment, then. Jellal headed back into the forest at a slow walk, frost crunching beneath his feet, staring at the bare trees, on which boughs lay freshly fallen snow. The sky was dark, the typical evening that warned people to brace for an icy winter night.

And that was when he saw it- a flash of scarlet; a dash of blood against bleak white cloth, half buried under a snowdrift. Heart pounding, he raced over, half stumbling as he sank into a deep bank of snow, breath throwing up fresh clouds of mist.

When he reached her side, he turned her over. Frost was dislodged from her armour, where it settled in the hollow of her throat and the pleats in her skirt. The newly falling snow landed on her deathly pale cheeks, and he brushed it away, almost tenderly.

He was kneeling now, her head on his lap. Her entire body was cold- how long had she been out here- minutes? Hours? Why had no one come for her yet?

She was barely breathing, and he stayed like that, not moving except to slowly sweep the snow from her clothes, her face, her silken hair.

She was so beautiful. His Erza.

- No, no, he mustn't think like that, he reminded himself. She couldn't be his. He couldn't allow himself to fall in love with people who walked in the light. People like Erza Scarlet.

He couldn't leave her like this, though. She'd freeze to death. Gently picking her up, he trudged through the snow, her long tresses falling back, pale throat exposed, snowflakes alighting on her long lashes. He watched her with a kind of sweet admiration. His best friend. Would she forgive him for his sins? Or would she hate him forever, as he deserved?

_Simon... He killed Simon._ He shook his head, trying to clear his head of the thought, and she stirred in his arms. His heart skipped a beat.

He couldn't afford to wake her. When he arrived at Fairy Hills, he lifted himself up to her window with magic, unlocked it with another spell, then slid it open.

Clambering in, he huffed with the effort of avoiding a nasty death by pike, and walked the length of five rooms to her bed.

It was nothing grand, about queen-size, with a black frame and blue sheets.

Only after tucking her in gently he noticed that the sheets were, either by coincidence or choice, the exact shade of his hair. He smiled.

Bending down, he touched his lips to her forehead.

He'd allow himself this one small sin.

"Goodbye, Erza. We will meet again soon. I promise."

Then he stepped back out of the window, closed it, and vanished into the rapidly darkening sky.

When Erza awoke, she was back in her own bed. The sheets were warm- she'd been there for quite a while, but never remembered returning to her room. Her mouth held the bitter taste of bile, as if she'd thrown up, but she shrugged it off, going to the bathroom to wash up. Funnily enough, her sleep this time had been dreamless, unlike the previous nights, though she could've sworn she heard a voice- _his_ voice.

_"We will meet again soon. I promise."_

She smiled to herself- surely it couldn't be- she was imagining things- and went to open her window to let in some fresh air.

How strange- it was unlocked. She always locked her windows, whether she was in the room or not.

She thought it was strange, but let it go. It was time to head down to the guild and prove to Lucy that she was still alive and not possessed by an evil spirit.

As she entered the guild hall, she hear Romeo saying, "Master, there is a way. We could enter the Daimatou Enbu!"

-END-

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**Did you like it? Please tell me what you think!**


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